


We Live Forever

by aerintine



Category: Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-12
Updated: 2011-11-12
Packaged: 2017-12-12 00:17:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/804908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aerintine/pseuds/aerintine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She doesn’t know how she knows where to go and when. She just does.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We Live Forever

**Author's Note:**

> This is something of a companion piece to [Scheherezade](http://archiveofourown.org/works/804890). These are my hopes for Elena. Poem by Denise Levertov.

 

 

A certain day became a presence to me;  
there it was, confronting me – a sky, air, light:  
a being. And before it started to descend  
from the height of noon, it leaned over  
and struck my shoulder as if with  
the flat of a sword, granting me  
honor and a task. The day’s blow  
rang out, metallic – or it was I, a bell awakened,  
and what I heard was my whole self  
saying and singing what it knew: _I can._

 

 

 

_She doesn’t know how she knows where to go and when. She just does._

_She enters the darkened room with a sense of foreboding. Death has been her occupation for countless years, but _dying_ is an experience which never fails to put her on edge. It’s the in-between. The end of things that aren’t quite over. It’s a time of waiting and of uncertainty. It ought to happen quickly, or not at all. It makes her teeth itch._

_Inside it smells of morphine and decay. She wrinkles her nose. She quickly compels the nurse to go on an extended break._

_The figure lying in the bed is silent and still. She approaches and, after a pause, sits at the edge of the mattress._

_She looks down at the tiny body. The skin is thin, translucent, etched with lines. The face is old and weathered, yet the features remain delicate and familiar. She sees the shadow of herself there. Only a shadow. She frowns. It’s more difficult than she’d like, seeing her face so used and finished. Long, slow breaths rattle the shrunken rib cage and brush past the slightly parted lips._

_The hands are knotted, arthritic and worn. They lie limp on the bed at the body’s sides. She takes one of them in her own, closes her eyes, and concentrates._

 

When she opens her eyes she’s lying on her back, looking up at the night sky. She furrows her brow and looks around. She startles when she turns her head to the right and meets a pair of frank, appraising eyes.

“Took you long enough,” says Elena.

Katherine rolls her eyes and gives Elena a knowing smirk.

“Waiting for me? I’m touched.”

Elena grins.

“You know I was. You move slowly, Grandma.”

“Careful who you’re calling grandma, _Grandma_. I came as soon as I could.”

Elena looks up at the sky.

“Thanks, I appreciate it.”

Katherine studies her profile.

“Sure, no problem.”

She turns her gaze upwards. They lay in silence for some minutes.

“So,” says Katherine finally, “Where are we exactly? And what are we doing?”

“We’re at my parents’ cabin on the lake. And I’d think it’s fairly obvious we’re stargazing.”

Katherine turns again and studies her companion. Elena is not the teenage girl she was the last time Katherine set eyes on her. Yet she is not the ancient body in the bed either. She has some lines around her eyes, and her hair has tiny flecks of silver running through it. She looks like a woman, this girl. This girl who wore her face for a time, but gave it up eventually. Made it her own, Katherine realizes with a pang. She turns again and looks at the panorama of starlight above them.

“Do you know anything about stars?” Elena asks.

“I remember they were brighter than this when I was younger. But I never learned their names,” says Katherine.

“Really?” says Elena. “I learned all of the constellations when I was a kid. My mom taught me. I forgot them for a little while. But now I remember them all.”

“Yeah? What’s that one over there?” Katherine points.

“That’s Orion. See his belt and his bow? He’s with Sirius, the Dog Star. They chase the Pleiades across the sky. ” She traces the pattern in the air. “And that little glowing ball near the horizon? That’s the planet Venus. She watches over lovers. And over there is Cassiopeia. She has to sit upside down for half the year because she’s so full of herself. Or something. I have a harder time with the actual mythology.”

Katherine squints.

“How do you see all of that? I only see a random splatter of lights.”

She can hear the smile in Elena’s voice when she answers.

“I don’t know, I guess I just do. At first they all look the same. But once you know them, you can’t help but see them as they are.”

“Right,” says Katherine, “I suppose there’s a life lesson in there somewhere, huh?”

Elena doesn’t say anything.

They watch. The night is quiet. An occasional meteor sprints across the indigo. Katherine remembers that she should make a wish when she sees a shooting star. But they’re never there for more than a blink, so there’s not enough time.

 

“Did I ever introduce you to my kids?”

The question comes out of nowhere.

“I haven’t seen you in over eighty years, Elena.”

Elena looks confused for a moment.

“You haven’t? Hmm, I could’ve sworn…” She blinks and shakes her head. “Never mind, of course you haven’t.”

Katherine considers her.

_She looks down at the body lying next to her. The breathing is more labored and the muscles are tight along the forehead and jaw. Katherine leans over and pushes the morphine button. Her charge relaxes again._

“Tell me about them,” says Katherine. “There are two of them, right?”

“Yes, two girls. But they’re not kids anymore. They’ve got their own kids. Even my grandchildren have babies now. But once upon a time, they were small and they were mine. All mine.”

“What else? What are their names?”

Elena looks at her.

“Do we really have time for this?”

“Don’t worry,” says Katherine, “We have lots of time. Tell me everything.”

Elena talks. Katherine listens. The stars blink.

“What about you?”

“What about me?” says Katherine.

“Your children. What were they like?”

Katherine presses her lips together.

“I had one daughter. But I don’t want to talk about that.”

“You can tell me, you know. I promise I’ll keep it to myself.”

Katherine gives her a look.

“Very funny.”

“I’m serious. Shouldn’t you get to tell someone about her? Shouldn’t someone know? Might as well be me.”

Katherine sighs.

“She – It was so long ago.” She crosses and uncrosses her ankles in the grass. “I never got to hold her. They took her from me, and I never saw her again. I don’t know what happened to her.”

She tenses when Elena rests her hand on her forearm.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

“Well, that’s all there is to that.”

“Did she have a name?”

Katherine stares at the stars and remains silent.

Elena speaks again.

“You left out the most important part,” she says.

“Yeah, what’s that?”

Elena rolls to her side and looks down at Katherine.

“She survived.”

Katherine looks away.

“No, look at me.” When she has Katherine’s eyes again, she continues. “She _survived,_ Katherine. She lived. You gave her life and she lived it. I’m proof.”

“You’re proof that I’m a sap.”

“I’m proof that everything you are keeps going. I won’t live forever, and neither will my children. But your girl, my girls, all our girls ensure we go on forever.”

Katherine’s face is soft when she replies.

“Elena Gilbert, you’re pretty damn remarkable, you know that? Irritating, but remarkable.”

Elena smiles and turns back to look up at the night sky.

“Sometimes,” she says.

They lay peacefully for a while and just breathe.

Finally, Katherine speaks again.

“Tell me more. What else have you done with this life of yours?”

Elena inches closer until their arms brush. Katherine tries very hard not to pull away.

She tells Katherine about the trip she took to California with Bonnie and Caroline to celebrate the completion of her Masters thesis. They spent two weeks lying on the beach by day and hitting all the clubs at night. They got lost trying to find a dealer of obscure wiccan artifacts Bonnie wanted to meet, and ended up spending an extra weekend in a border town drinking tequila and dancing until the early hours of the morning. It was the last time the three of them took a trip together, though they would go home to Mystic Falls for a weekend here and there as the years went by.

She tells her about her quirky husband, how he was sweet and weird and dorky and adorable. How she talked him into one baby, and he talked her into two. How they stopped liking each other sometimes, but luckily never at the same time. How sometimes things were tense. How marriage shaped her understanding of how love works, and how it doesn’t. How he died too young and left her to greet her grandchildren’s births by herself. How she eventually forgave him for it, but never forgot.

She talks about her first book of short stories, how she didn’t think she would ever write again but one day she simply started, and never stopped. She confesses a lot of her characters were based on people she knew, but she always tried to be fair and tell the truth, even in fiction.

Katherine does not confess she’s read more than one of Elena’s works.

Elena tells her about plays and movies and music she loved. About all the trips she took with her family and the places she saw. About joining a bowling league because it embarrassed her teenage daughters. Brags she once bowled a perfect game and has a trophy that reaches her waist to prove it. It’s stored away somewhere, she says, just waiting to jump out at someone when they clean out the basement.

She shares that she went hiking alone every weekend until she was well into her seventies, when an unfortunate accident with a root on the path and a broken wrist convinced her to stick closer to home unless she was with someone. She took up gardening and recruited one of her grandsons to do the weeding so she could sit and write and eat tomatoes off the vine and carrots rinsed under the hose.

She talks about motherhood, and how it was nothing like she expected. How she was always tired and never had enough time. How her babies were willful and rebellious and tested the very limits of her nerves. How her heart exploded every time she looked at them and how they grew to be the most beautiful women she’s ever known.

When she finishes speaking, they fall into silence again. Katherine can see her breath in the air, yet she isn’t cold.

She focuses on a particularly bright star when she speaks. Her voice is hushed.

“What was it like, _really_?” she asks.

“What was what like?”

“Living.”

Elena smiles. There are tears in her voice.

“It was _everything._ And then some. The whole thing. Just… everything.”

Katherine swallows whatever is lodged in her throat.

“I thought so.”

“When you see them again, you tell them that.”

Katherine doesn’t have to ask whom. She nods.

“I will.”

 

The night lengthens. It’s dark except for the stars. Katherine thinks she shouldn’t be able to see everything this clearly. The cabin behind them stands out in stark repose, and she can see the tips of every blade of grass. The lake laps at the shore in small silver waves, encouraged by a gentle breeze. She thinks she could stay here a long while.

She is surprised when she looks at Elena again; she’s shed her mature form and once again looks like her annoying brat teenage self. Young and fresh. Elena looks at her expectantly.

“Have you ever gone swimming under the stars?” she asks.

“Uh, not that I can recall,” says Katherine.

“It’s the best. Let’s go, I feel like floating.”

Elena grins as she jumps up and whips off her t-shirt. Katherine’s still looking up at her in bewilderment when Elena steps out of her jeans and reaches for the clasp of her bra.

“Come on, Katherine. You’re not afraid of getting wet, are you?” Elena’s eyes flicker in challenge.

“But it’s the middle of the night.”

“That’s where we live, doll.”

Katherine’s mouth quirks.

“Alright then.”

She rises and strips. It feels strange to be naked out in the open like this. The breeze raises gooseflesh on her shoulders and breasts. She shakes her head at herself. Six centuries of wantonness, and being nude out of doors throws her. She never knew she could be such a prude. She resists the urge to cross her arms.

Elena catches her eye again. She looks _happy_. Katherine frowns.

“Elena, tell me the truth,” Katherine says. “Do you know what’s happening?”

Elena’s face grows serious. She steps forward and takes Katherine’s hand. Squeezes.

“Of course I do. We’re going to hold hands. We’ll jump together. And then we’ll float away.” She looks at Katherine intently. “Okay?”

Katherine scrutinizes her for a moment, and then nods.

“Okay.”

_She smoothes a crease in the blanket at Elena’s breast. She brushes a wisp of bright silver hair from Elena’s cheek, tucks it behind her ear. Ghosts her fingertips over her face. She pauses for the smallest moment, then gently covers Elena's nose and mouth with sure, unyielding pressure. Katherine doesn’t notice and would surely deny the tears which paint her cheeks, slow and measured._

“You ready?” asks Katherine. She wiggles her bare toes in the grass. Dew is starting to collect in a fine mist all around them.

Elena smiles and nods once. She takes a deep breath. The stars reflect in the fullness of her eyes.

Katherine mirrors her intake of breath.

“Let’s do this then, before I lose my nerve.”

“Don’t worry,” Elena says, “We’ll be fine.”

They turn as one towards the dock, hands clasped firm.

_The hand Katherine holds squeezes hers tightly. She squares her jaw and keeps holding on._

She feels Elena tense. They take off running.

The breeze whips through their hair as they race to the water. The air moves over their skin in cool caresses. They cannot help it; they both start to laugh.

Their feet slap against the planks of the dock, sending dull echoes into the night.

Overhead, the stars spark, burst, and fall in all directions.

When they leap from the edge, Elena lets out a whoop of joy.

And then they’re flying.

 

_The hand relaxes._

 

And then they’re floating.

 

 

 

 

 

fin.


End file.
